Why did Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick lie about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein?

 Lutnick and Epstein were in business together, Epstein files show

... Lutnick, the former chairman of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who at one point lived next door to Epstein, told the New York Post in October that he and his wife Allison had cut ties with Epstein in 2005, deciding after taking a tour of Epstein's New York townhouse, "I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again."

However, it appears Epstein and Lutnick continued to maintain contact and emails show they arranged calls and planned to have drinks in 2011. 

The following year, the couple and their four children planned a visit to Epstein's island, Little St. James, emails show. Lutnick was invited for lunch on Dec. 24, 2012, and later, Epstein's assistant wrote on behalf of Epstein, "it was nice seeing you."

Their Adfin deal was signed four days later. ... 

By the time Epstein and Lutnick agreed to buy stakes in Adfin, it had been more than four years since Epstein agreed to enter a guilty plea to Florida state charges of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. The case brought forth allegations of far broader sex trafficking and victimization of girls, but it wasn't until 2019 that Epstein was charged with federal felonies including trafficking. He died in jail in the weeks after his arrest. ...

Epstein files: Congressional lawmakers call for Trump Commerce chief Lutnick to resign, or be fired

... Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., urged Lutnick to step down after The New York Times reported the Trump ally interacted “regularly” with Epstein, according to files released by the Department of Justice relating to the notorious sex offender. Massie was the lead Republican on the Epstein Files Transparency Act that compelled the release of the Epstein files.

“He should just resign,” Massie said on CNN’s “Inside Politics Sunday.” “Howard Lutnick clearly went to the island if we believe what’s in these files; he was in business with Jeffrey Epstein, and this was many years after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted.”

He added: “He’s got a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.” ...

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson and five others resign in Minnesota as Trump tries to strong-arm the investigation of Renee Good's killing in the direction of victim-blaming

At least 6 Minnesota federal prosecutors resign amid pressure to treat Renee Good killing as assault on ICE agent

... the office continues to face pressure to treat the investigation of the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE officer as an assault on a federal officer case. ...

He resigned from the attorney's office along with Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams, Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, Ruth Schneider and Tom Hollenhurst. ... 

CBS News, now run by Trump-friendly Bari Weiss, decided not to run this clip showing all the ways ICE agent Jonathan Ross was in the wrong

 But you can see it here.

 

One man is about to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Venezuela

 The more the Uniparty changes, the more it stays the same.

Bush invades Iraq. Putin invades Ukraine. Trump invades Venezuela. 

Expect Xi to invade Taiwan at any minute.

One big happy family of invaders, carving up the world.

 

U.S. Sending Aircraft Carrier Strike Group to Waters Off Latin America

 

In early February Trump was +6 in the CBS News poll, now he's -12, with Democrats +3 in the generic 2026 Congressional ballot, but Real Clear Politics keeps telling us Democrats are less popular now than in Trump's first term

 

Kornacki: Unlike In Trump's First Term, Democratic Party Less Popular Than Republicans

Mad King Ludwig to impose 50% tariff on Brazil but not on Israel lol

I mean, some countries are more equal than others amirite? 

 Trump To Impose 50% Brazil Tariff, Citing Bolsonaro "Witch Hunt"

Trump brands Netanyahu's corruption trial a 'witch hunt,' calls for it to be canceled

 

The White House's Stephen Miller attacks libertarians for opposing the reconciliation bill's immigration enforcement spending

 ... the White House deputy chief of staff — and chief architect of Trump’s immigration agenda — is taking a sledgehammer to what remains of the libertarian-conservative fusionism that was prominent in the party pre-Trump.

“The libertarians in the House and Senate trying to take down this bill — they’re not stupid. They just don’t care,” Miller said in an interview with conservative activist and commentator Charlie Kirk last week.

“Immigration has never mattered to them; it will never matter to them. Deportations have never mattered to them; it will never matter to them. You will never live a day in your life where a libertarian cares as much about immigration and sovereignty as they do about the Congressional Budget Office.” ...

Miller’s aversion to libertarians, though, seems to go deeper than opportunistic messaging for the bill. He posted in 2022 that the uprising of the ideology in the House GOP is “how we ended up with open borders globalist [Paul] Ryan.” He blamed libertarian candidates for siphoning votes away from failed Trump-endorsed candidates in 2022 — Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona, and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire.

“Another example of how libertarians ruin everything,” Miller said in one post responding to a 2022 Georgia Senate poll. ...

More.

The CBS Poll referenced in the story indicates 55% like Trump's deportation goals but 56% dislike his approach.

Polling on the reconciliation bill indicates most think it will help the wealthy and hurt poor and middle class people, with a third admitting they have no idea what's in the bill. Well, neither did many in the US House who voted for the damn thing.

This points up the political danger of these Christmas Tree bills adorned with something for everyone. They're too complicated to understand and therefore capture little enthusiasm. But Stephen Miller fancifully thinks otherwise:

“By including the immigration language with the tax cuts with the welfare reform, it creates a coalition. Politics is all about coalitions,” Miller said in the interview with Kirk — also praising Trump in the interview as “able to create a winning formula for populist, nationalist, conservative government.”          

But not libertarian government.

 

 

 

Trump ICE arrests: 100k in 20 weeks

 At this rate Trump will arrest just over 1 million illegals in four years, that's it.

If ICE could sustain 2,000 arrests a day from here on out, 2.6 million would be the total, out of many millions more claimed to be in the country illegally.

As with DOGE, campaign promises are easier to make than they are to keep.

ICE arrests under Trump top 100,000 as officials expand aggressive efforts to detain migrants

 Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Trump's second term topped 100,000 this week, as federal agents intensified efforts to detain unauthorized immigrants in courthouses, worksites and communities across the U.S., internal government data obtained by CBS News shows.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, ICE recorded more than 2,000 arrests each day, a dramatic increase from the daily average of 660 arrests reported by the agency during Mr. Trump's first 100 days back at the White House, the federal statistics show. During President Biden's last year in office, ICE averaged roughly 300 daily arrests, according to agency data.

The latest numbers show ICE is getting closer to meeting the far-reaching demands of top administration officials like White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who has forcefully pushed the agency to conduct "a minimum" of 3,000 arrests each day. 

On Thursday morning, ICE was holding around 54,000 immigrant detainees in detention facilities across the country, according to the data. The Trump administration is asking Congress to give ICE billions of dollars in extra funds to hire thousands of additional deportation officers and expand detention capacity to hold 100,000 individuals at any given point. Officials are also looking at converting facilities inside military bases into immigration detention centers. ...

TACO Trump strikes again

 Trump always chickens out, aka paper tiger, etc.

(June 2) Trump administration pauses Social Security benefit cuts over defaulted student loans

 Social Security recipients do not need to worry about their benefits being garnished due to their defaulted student loans, at least for now. The development is an abrupt change in policy by the administration, which had announced in April that it would be resuming collection activity on defaulted student loan borrowers. The Education Dept. had said that Social Security benefit offsets could begin as early as June.

(June 3) Deutsche Bank raises S&P 500 forecast on ‘TACO’ theory: ‘We will get further relents’

(May 29) 10 times Trump has threatened, then backtracked on, tariffs as 'TACO trade' jab gains traction

(May 31) Trump Raises Steel Tariffs To 50%—Here Are The 21 Times He’s Changed His Mind

(May 28) Trump was asked about the "TACO" trade and called it a "nasty question." Here's what it means.

(The guy who started TACO May 2) The US market’s surprise comeback, and the rise of the ‘Taco’ trade theory

... the US administration does not have a very high tolerance for market and economic pressure, and will be quick to back off when tariffs cause pain. This is the Taco theory: Trump Always Chickens Out. ...     

(June 2):

US extends tariff pause on some Chinese goods through to August 31

 

The suspect in the Palm Springs bombing, Guy Edward Bartkus, was apparently on a mission for V'ger of Star Trek fame, believing carbon-units were an infestation

 

FBI: Palm Springs explosion suspect "had nihilistic ideations," is believed dead after fertility clinic bombing

 

Update June 4: Man arrested in New York linked to California fertility clinic explosion: officials

It's not how MAGA Millennials feel, it's how they rook

 

Hegseth orders makeup studio installed at Pentagon

Trump's biggest tariff, 50%, was on tiny landlocked poverty-stricken Lesotho inside South Africa, over a minuscule trade imbalance of $234.5 MILLION in 2024, which is under a treaty for godsakes

 

Lesotho's exports to the US in 2024 were valued at $237.3 MILLION lol. Trump now wants 50% of that.

King George III, who also was nuts, was a benevolent king to America compared to this guy.

 Trump's biggest tariff was on tiny Lesotho. Here's what to know about the African kingdom.

... Mr. Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs included a whopping 50% levy on the small, impoverished nation's imports, and the Lesotho government quickly said it would send a delegation to Washington. ...

Lesotho's annual gross domestic product of $2 billion is highly reliant on exports, mostly of textiles, including jeans. ...

The White House claims, by way of [its] formula, that Lesotho imposes 99% tariffs and other barriers on U.S. imports. ...

With an annual gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, Lesotho is largely dependent on South Africa — it biggest trading partner — from which it imports most of its food, selling water in return.

The economy has been heavily reliant on textile exports bound for the United States through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade deal, which provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for some African products. The Trump administration's imposition of tariffs on African nations has raised questions over how likely the White House is to renew the AGOA pact when it expires in September. ...

Mad King Ludwig says his tariffs will bring in $1T in the next year lol

 President Trump has argued that some of the tariffs he's imposing this week could help the government raise over $1 trillion in the next year or so

 S&P 500 loses $2.4 trillion in market value, biggest one-day loss since 2020

Mad King Ludwig says pigs will fly

 

You're going to see billions of dollars, even trillions of dollars coming into our country very soon in the form of tariffs.

-- here, 3/25/25, and here

Marco Rubio confirmed as Secretary of State in 99-0 vote, voted for himself lol

 

The Senate on Monday unanimously confirmed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as America’s 72nd secretary of State, putting in place the first member of President Trump’s Cabinet on the day of his inauguration.

Rubio’s confirmation vote passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, 99-0. Rubio also was able to cast a vote for himself. 

Reported here by The Hill at 6:52pm yesterday.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced Sunday that Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted would replace Vice President J. D. Vance in the US Senate, but he has not yet been sworn in, hence the 99-0 vote for Rubio.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Thursday, January 16th that Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will replace Rubio in the Senate after Rubio formally resigns.

SKYCAL/CBS News captured, on lengthy video of helicopters extinguishing a brush fire, the Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades completely empty on Wednesday Nov 13th

 Here.

 

Who ya gonna believe, The Hill 952AM Jan 5 or CBS News 205PM Jan 5?

 Thune says it’s unclear whether all Trump Cabinet picks will be confirmed 

Thune has privately told Trump that Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed as Defense Secretary, sources say

 

Donald J. Trump was against the H-1B Visa Program before he was for it lol

Donald J. Frankenstein is the GOP's version of Boltneck, who was for the use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan before he was against paying for it. 

Elon Musk has that effect on people lol.

Don't get the Neuralink from the mad scientist or it could happen to you, too!

 

The scandal of Pete Hegseth is that HE THINKS the encounter with Jane Doe was bad enough to threaten his job at FOX NEWS but not at the Department of Defense

Trump’s Pentagon pick paid woman after sex assault allegation but denies wrongdoing, his lawyer says

  Hegseth was concerned that she was prepared to file a lawsuit that he feared could have resulted in him being fired from Fox News. ...

The person who reported the assault — whose name, age and sex were not released — had bruises on the right thigh, according to the city’s statement. ...

At the time of the 2017 accusations, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce with his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with a Fox News producer who is now his wife, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after infidelity by Hegseth, according to court records.

 

Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for defense secretary, paid accuser to save job at Fox News, his lawyer says

 Fox News host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to serve as defense secretary, paid a confidential financial settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault out of concern that the allegation would lead to his firing from the cable news giant, his lawyer told CBS News. ...

The city of Monterey confirmed the 2017 investigation into Hegseth and said in a statement that investigators found the woman had "contusions" on her right thigh. No charges were filed, Parlatore said. 

The Washington Post, which first reported the financial payment, obtained what it referred to as a memo that was sent to the Trump transition team by a friend of the accuser alleging Hegseth raped a conservative group staffer in his room after drinking at the hotel bar. According to the Post, the memo states that the day after the incident, the accuser "had a moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before, and had a panic attack."

Senator John Barrasso: Trump's new energy secretary fracking pioneer Chris Wright will make America an all-of-the-above energy country that puts American families first

 

 Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who is expected to become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Trump promised bold choices for his Cabinet, and Wright's nomination delivers.

"He's s an energy innovator who laid the foundation for America's fracking boom. After four years of America last energy policy, our country is desperate for a secretary (of energy) who understands how important American energy is to our economy and our national security,″ Barrasso said of Wright, adding: "Wright will help ensure America remains committed to an all-of-the-above energy policy that puts American families first."

More.